Second example

The second example is the scModules cooperation project supported by the EU, the participants of whom, in an experimental way, involved in developing digital content in the new platform, using high resolution digitisation equipment and content management system (CMS)6 .

Responding to an open call announced by the European digitisation enterprise The Mad Pixel Factory, the think tank Creative Museum became one of the project partners, ensuring the enterprise with access to Latvian museum collections for the purposes of digitising them in high resolution, receiving in return the possibility to develop free of charge website and mobile application of the relevant collection.

In such way, the application Second Canvas Himsel Museum was created, which is being justly advertised as a tool for exploring 6 museum masterpieces in extra high resolution. Both the museological concept and technical performance of the application make it so novel and special: practically all memory institutions holding the scattered collections and documentary evidence of the 18th century historical Himsel Museum in Riga became project cooperation partners - Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation, Latvian National Museum of Art (Art Museum Riga Bourse), Academic Library of the University of Latvia, Latvian State Historical Archives, etc.

The application gave the possibility to gather, in a digital form, the scattered early collections and documentary evidence from the first public museum in the Baltics - Himsel Museumand to mark its approaching 250th anniversary in 2023.

To a certain extent, Himsel Museum resurrected the idea of a universal museum of the age of enlightenment, where a museum is the mechanism of obtaining knowledge, having a holistic - integral - vision of the world as one. A museum, assembling the objects of local and exotic cultures, divided into natural (naturalia), scientific (scientifica) and artistic (artificalia) categories and providing a representation of the world as an integrated whole. It is an approach that is equally rooted in the key principles of philosophy of the modern day museum sector and proficiently combines resources for achieving a possibly best result.

Similar to the CREMA example, created within the scope of a cooperation project through the website building tools, the experimental project of Second Canvas Himsel Museum enabled one to create an innovative website and application in a single digital platform, representing the collections of the oldest museum in the Baltics along with the museums of the Western Europe. In methodological terms, both examples show potential ways as to how, in cooperation with partner organisations, through involvement in international projects, to create functional websites and high-quality digital end products.

Museums in Latvia have spent numerous years in studying, digitising and describing the objects of the museum holdings, entering information in the Joint Catalogue of the National Museum Holdings7 – a site for professionals and researchers.

If, in turn, the museum opts for individual outreach to audiences or wishes to obtain feedback from the users of different profiles, the solution can be offered by one of the tools or platforms for website development. Visible and verified website development tools: https://www.wix.com https://www.squarespace.com 81

Virtual reality (VR)

The development dynamics of the global market for new technologies allows to expect that in the foreseeable future such immersive web technologies as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), erasing the boundaries between the real and the digital, would no longer be an exotic, but rather an everyday phenomenon. It is expected that we would simply not be able to fulfil our job duties without some kind of extended reality (XR), similar to how, under the circumstances of a lockdown forced by the COVID-19, we would not have been able to perform our work without a personal computer, telephone or tablet with internet connection, which is currently available to almost everyone. Socialising (networking), entertainment, studying and co-working and creating will form a part of an immersive internet ecosystem in the not-so-distant future.

VR is entering Latvian museums quite slowly. Those museum organisations, who, ahead of time, in the form of small pilot projects, master new technologies, take part in the XR product development and, therewith, even in the development of such new technologies, before the technologies have become generally available and impose their own sovereign rules of the game, would benefit the most.

The times when VR development was mainly determined by the gaming and entertainment industries for satisfying the wishes of well-off consumers, are changing in favour of moving towards organisation of work, studies and socialising in a complex VR ecosystem. Along with the rapid development of new communication technologies, the demand for highly credible and serious educational content grows, as well.

Such a development scenario is evidenced by the statement announced at the end of 2021 by one of the largest developers of the internet communication technologies - Facebook regarding the change of the brand of corporation to Meta. The programmatic Metaverse is applied as a 3D environment, thus, the VR technology-based public space in the internet of things, where to socialise, study and work8 .

If the mission of museums is the preservation and communication of the cultural and historical heritage of humankind, then not only profitability, but also professional ethics motivates not only to use the new immersive technologies, but also to get involved in the development of such technologies for the better of humanity. Museums, with a high degree of public trust globally inherent, arising out of the fundamental principle of the profession to act in the name of the public good, are ideally positioned to take part in creating an immersive VR ecosystem, oriented towards conflict-solving and humanity.

Best practice examples and development

methodology in using VR in Latvian museums:

• Technical history exploration examplethe VR elements of the permanent exhibition of Alūksne Narrow Gauge Train (Bānītis) Station (2018);

• Example of the history of conflictsStage 1 and 2 of Lipke Bunker VR development (2019-2022).